The Parting Glass
by Fortitudine
Summary: In 1918, a naive young writer tracks down one of the last surviving members of the notorious Devil's Hole Gang.


**The Parting Glass**

_Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company_

_And all the harm I've ever done, alas! It was to none but me._

_And all I've done from want of wit, to mem'ry I cannot recall._

_So fill to me the parting glass—Good night and joy be to you all_. (Irish trad.)

Good evenin', son. I heard you was lookin' for old-timers what remembered the Devil's Hole gang. You're writin' a book, I take it? No, I can't tell you my real name. Why? 'Cos the statute of limitations don't run out on murder.

Relax, young feller! Call me Jim, if you've a mind to call me anything. Well, maybe just a short one. Whisky and me ain't the friends we once was.

Sure, I rode with that gang on and off for nigh on ten years, right up until the end. We robbed our last bank in Telluride and I damn near didn't live to tell the tale. Nine of us rode in and five rode out. That was when I decided there had to be safer ways to make a livin'. Besides, after the winter of '86 didn't none of us want to go back to Devil's Hole. Most of our horses froze to death and we was scarecrows by the time spring got there. Half the ranches in Wyoming went under that year, so there wasn't much left to steal.

How much? Son, if we'd ever got our hands on that kind of money, do you think I'd be here now? We never made a haul bigger'n thirty thousand and most was a lot smaller. When you have to divide it up among ten or twelve other fellas it don't go too far—and somehow it never stuck to our fingers very long. Wine, women and song, like they say. It wasn't "easy come" but it sure as hell was "easy go."

There ain't many of us left. Wheat Carlson got himself killed, as might be expected. Died holdin' up a hardware store in Butte, Montana, shot by the owner. Lobo and Merkle went to prison and never come out. Hank and Long Bill just kind of drifted off and disappeared. There was plenty of other fellers, wet-eared boys usually, rode with us once or twice and then quit or got caught. Or killed. I don't remember them, much.

Kyle Murtry took off to Californy and worked for a road-buildin' comp'ny until he got a job in the movin' pictures. I ain't fond of them, myself—they generally get everythin' wrong—but once in a while I'll go see one, and sure enough ol' Kyle's there in the background bein' a prospector or drivin' a chuckwagon or somethin'.

The Preacher wound up married to a widder woman in San Antone and she made him quit drinkin' and turn back to the Lord. I got a Christmas card and a photo of him and a passel of grandkids from them last year. That's about it, except for me, and you can see for yourself what happened. Ain't quite the figure of romance and legend you expected? Hell, I'm not sure any of us was figures of romance and legend even back then. Bein' an outlaw was mostly dirty work, short rations, and the strong chance of coughin' your lungs out around a sheriff's bullet, but I don't try to convince people of that no more.

If you was to offer me another one, I wouldn't say no, young feller. I s'pose who you really want to hear about is Heyes and the Kid.

Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, prob'ly the two most successful outlaws in the whole West. And smart enough to get out when the owlhoot trail begun to get real chancy, I guess it was back in the early '80's. They left the gang and disappeared for a while, maybe to Canada or Mexico or someplace. After a couple years, Heyes talked the governor of Wyoming into givin' them amnesty. He always had a silver tongue, did Heyes.

Not that it was milk and honey for them once the amnesty was announced. Nossir, there was lots of folks still held a grudge, and plenty more that reckoned takin' on them two was a fast way to a reputation. Finally Heyes got tired of it, went back East and got into politics. He's the director of public works for the city of Chicago now, a right powerful man, rich and respected. They named a street after him.

I'm pretty sure he's goin' to die in his bed—and if I know Heyes, not alone. You're blushing, son.

The Kid? Well, that's another story. He had a pretty hard time, 'specially after Heyes left. Heyes tried to talk him into goin' East with him, but I s'pose it was about the only time he didn't get his partner to do what he wanted him to. The Kid just couldn't leave the West—only the West wasn't the West he knew no more.

Law-abidin' folks didn't want nothin' to do with him, and he couldn't get work, not the kind of work he wanted, anyway. Buffalo Bill tried to hire him for his show, and so did Ringling Brothers. A dime novel publisher in New York even wanted to put out a bunch of books about his adventures, and all the Kid would've had to do was sign his name to 'em. He wasn't interested, he was tryin' to put all that in the past. Anyways, there was always those young pups out there gunnin' for him, a new crop every year. Seems like nobody ever saw nothin' but that Colt of his and not the man behind it.

He changed his name and joined the Army, maybe he thought since he was good at shootin', he might as well get paid for it. Did you know he was wounded at San Juan Hill? Yep, and retired as a sergeant major in 1911 after that trouble down on the border with Pancho Villa. I guess retirement didn't suit him none, 'cos I run into him in San Francisco two-three years back when the ruckus was startin' in Europe, and he told me he'd signed up to go over and drive one of them motor-ambulances for the British Red Cross.

He was on the _Lusitania_. The Kid bein' the Kid, after they was hit he went below to help fetch out some of the women and children, and that's the last anybody saw of him. Heyes paid to put up a marker for him, in Ireland near where they went down. I reckon that's the only memorial any of us'll ever get. Unless they name somethin' else in Chicago after Heyes.

One more for the road? Thank'ee, young feller. Let me know when you finish that book and I'll get me a copy. You make sure you do right by us…hear?

_Oh, all the comrades e'er I had, were sad to see me go away_

_And all the sweethearts e'er I had, did beg me one more day to stay._

_But since it falls into my lot, that I must go and you must not;_

_I'll gently rise and softly call—Good night, and joy be to you all._


End file.
